Estemirova investigation on wrong track, colleagues say

Two
years ago, as she was leaving home on a hot Wednesday morning in Grozny,
several attackers forced Natalya
Estemirova,
the prominent journalist and human rights defender, into a car. A young witness--who
later fled for fear of reprisal--recalled that Estemirova cried out she was being
kidnapped and that a white Lada sedan then sped off. Estemirova's body was
found a few hours later, ditched along a road near the village of Gazi-Yurt in
neighboring Ingushetia.

Suspicion
immediately fell on Chechnya's administration, and, specifically, the
republic's president, Ramzan Kadyrov. He had made no secret of his hostility
toward Estemirova and the organizations she worked with--the human rights group
Memorial, the newspaper Novaya Gazeta,
and the regional online news agency Kavkazsky
Uzel. She had investigated human rights abuses, kidnappings, torture, and
extrajudicial killings in Chechnya--crimes that often implicated local security
and law enforcement officials, as well as the military men known as Kadyrovtsy
for their devotion to the Kadyrov clan.

Kadyrov
has repeatedly denied involvement in Estemirova's murder, even filing a
defamation lawsuit after Memorial's head, Oleg Orlov, publicly blamed the
Chechen leader for the murder. (A Moscow district court acquitted Orlov on June
14.) President Dmitry Medvedev condemned the murder back in July 2009 and
pledged that the killers would be apprehended and punished. But two years
later, the investigation is on the wrong track, Estemirova's colleagues said at
a press conference at the
Independent Press Center in Moscow last week.

An
investigation carried out by Novaya Gazeta, Memorial, and the
International Federation for Human Rights concludes that the official
inquiry has erred by focusing its suspicion on Alkhazur Bashayev, a rebel leader whom Chechen authorities say was killed in a 2009 firefight. Bashayev was allegedly
angered that Estemirova was looking into reports that separatists were recruiting
young men from the village of Shalazhi. (Estemirova indeed traveled to Shalazhi
in May 2009 to check out such reports.)

But
Estemirova was working on a more sensitive story at the time of the murder, her
colleagues told journalists last week. She was investigating the possible
involvement of Chechen police officers in the public execution of local
resident Rizvan Albekov. On July 7, 2009--a week before Estemirova's own
killing--armed men wearing camouflage clothing shot Albekov in the center of
Akhkinchu-Borzoi village, in the presence of local residents, Memorial reported
at the time. Before killing him, the assailants asked Albekov if he was helping
boyeviki (the rebels); without
waiting for a response, they riddled him with bullets and warned the stunned
group of witnesses that a similar fate awaited others who helped the rebels,
Memorial said.

Estemirova
was the first person to report on the case. The Investigative Committee of the
Russian Federation, which is leading the Estemirova probe, initially considered
the reporter's coverage of the Albekov execution to be a potential motive in
her own killing, colleagues said. In their report, titled "Two Years After the Killing of Natalya
Estemirova: Investigation on the Wrong Track," colleagues said that
detectives traveled to Chechnya's Kurchaloevsky district, and lead investigator
Igor Sobol sought information from Chechnya's prosecutor's office about Albekov's
killing and local police abuses. But investigators inexplicably stopped pursuing
the Kurchaloevsky lead in early 2010.

As
currently focused, the official investigation is built on flawed evidence, the new
report asserts. The 30-page document details questions about the car officials say
was used to kidnap Estemirova; a falsified police identification card said to
carry the photo of Bashayev; and a weapons cache allegedly found in the
Bashayev home that included the murder weapon. How, the authors asked, did the
car have no sign of struggle between Estemirova and her kidnappers? How was
Basheyev able to falsify a police identity card? The report's authors say Bashayev
was not sophisticated enough to do so.

But
most questions arise from the investigation's handling of the forensic evidence
collected from under Estemirova's fingernails--material that likely contained the DNA
of her killers. The material, authors said, showed that Estemirova fended off
at least three attackers, one of whom was a woman. Investigators ordered only
one type of DNA testing, they said, which could not categorically confirm or disprove
involvement by Bashayev. In the process of the testing, the report's authors
said, the samples were virtually depleted, making further testing nearly impossible.
It is still, possible, however, to compare the completed test results against other
possible suspects--such as police officers in Kurchaloyevsky. So far, according
to the new report's authors, such tests have not been carried out.

In
a statement on
Friday,
the second anniversary of Estemirova's murder, the Investigative Committee said
it had evidence as to the "irrefutable involvement" of Bashayev in the killing.
"The motive for this crime," the statement reads, "the investigation considers
Bashayev's revenge for Estemirova's publications about his recruitment of
rebels and attack on a Moscow businessman, as well as [Bashayev's] attempt to
discredit the government structures of the Chechen Republic." The Investigative Committee said it is seeking Bashayev on an international arrest warrant--reports of his death notwithstanding--and that revealing evidence would
jeopardize the investigation. Apparently responding to the report by Estemirova's colleagues, the Investigative Committee said: "Some
statements in the mass media about [Bashayev's] lack of involvement are not
based on facts but are simply the subjective opinion of persons who do not
possess the necessary competence, do not have information, and do not have
access to all of the materials of the criminal case."

For
their part, Estemirova's colleagues called on authorities to allow them such
access. At the press conference on Thursday, the Estemirova family lawyer Roman
Karpinsky told journalists that he has filed a claim with the European Court of
Human Rights, protesting the investigators' denial of access to relevant case
material to his clients.

(Reporting
from Moscow)

Nina Ognianova is coordinator of CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program. A native of Bulgaria, Ognianova has carried out numerous fact-finding and advocacy missions across the region. Her commentaries on press freedom have appeared in the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, the Huffington Post, and the EU Observer, among others. Follow her on Twitter @Kremlinologist1